Malaysian F1 Grand Prix 2013: Sunday's Race Report - Strong finish with Lewis on P3 and Nico on P4

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Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg finished the 2013 PETRONAS Malaysia Grand Prix in third and fourth places today.

- Lewis scored his 50th Formula One podium this afternoon and his first for the team

- He ran a four-stop strategy, stopping on laps 7, 21, 30 and 41, using intermediate/option/option/prime/option

- Nico also made four stops on laps 8, 22, 31 and 42, with the same tyre usage strategy

- The team scored 27 points today, the most on a single weekend since the Silver Arrows returned to Formula One in 2010

Lewis Hamilton
“That was a fantastic job by the team today. They worked so hard over the winter and to achieve a podium at the second race of the season is a nice reward, particularly here in Malaysia at one of our home races. I have to say big congratulations to Nico. He drove a smarter and more controlled race than me this afternoon and deserved to finish where I did. The team made the call for us to hold positions and we both respected that. The race was tough, we were fighting hard with Red Bull and went aggressive on our fuel strategy but they were just too good today. Third and fourth places is still a great result for us however and just increases our motivation to keep pushing and close that gap.”

Nico Rosberg
“It was a great day for us as a team and we can be very happy of our performance here this weekend. It was a good feeling to be competitive and to be able to set fastest lap times during the race. Thanks to all of you at the team for all the hard work, results like these are very well deserved. Of course, it was disappointing for me having to hold position but I understand the team’s decision to safeguard our positions and to make sure that both cars got to the end with a strong team finish, especially in light of the tough times behind us. There are a lot of races to go and our performance today makes me look forward to fighting for more podium finishes in the future.”

Ross Brawn
“This weekend was another step in the right direction for the team. We had a pretty good car today, certainly on the option tyres it was very good, and the team made the right calls on strategy. On the third set of dry tyres, the hard compound, we didn’t quite have the balance and that’s where we fell back. We had a heavier than expected fuel consumption during the race and as we got towards the end, we had to take some measures to ensure that both cars finished. We asked Lewis and Nico to hold position and both drivers respected that. Whilst it was tough for Nico and I fully expect him to be disappointed, we have now got a car we can fight with and that there will be plenty more opportunities to achieve good results this season. We’ve got to concentrate on keeping up the pace of development but we can take pride in achieving our first podium of the season and my thanks to everyone here and back at base for their commitment and hard work.”

Toto Wolff
“We achieved a very good result for the team this weekend and to score some solid points is very satisfying. We have continued to show an upward performance trend although there is still work for us to do to close the gap to the leading cars even further. Both Lewis and Nico both drove extremely well today. Tough decisions have to be made sometimes and it was important for us that both cars finished the race and we scored some solid points. Congratulations to everyone here at the track, and back at Brackley and Brixworth for our first podium of the season, and we will keep pushing hard to make sure that more will follow.”

~ Official photos and report courtesy of MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS ~

Copyright © 2013, mercedesgla. All rights reserved.

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Malaysian F1 Grand Prix 2013: Saturday's Qualifying Report - Lewis Hamilton P4, Nico Rosberg P6

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Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg qualified in fourth and sixth places for the Malaysian Grand Prix this afternoon.

- Both drivers completed one run on the hard compound tyre in Q1 and one run on the medium compound in Q2

- With rain starting to fall during the second qualifying session, Q3 required the use of intermediates tyres

- Lewis and Nico used one set of intermediates for the session and finished in P4 and P6 respectively

Drivers ++ Car No. ++ Chassis No. ++ Practice ++ Qualifying 1 ++ Qualifying 2 ++ Qualifying 3
Lewis Hamilton ++ 10 ++ F1 W04 / 04 ++ P2 ++ P8, 1:37.513 ++ P3, 1:36.517 ++ P4, 1:51.699
Nico Rosberg ++ 9 ++ F1 W04 / 03 ++ P9 ++ P3, 1:37.239 ++ P1, 1:36.190 ++ P6, 1:52.519

Weather - Hot & humid with rain showers

Lewis Hamilton
“I’m pretty happy with fourth place considering the conditions today. The car was not too bad in the dry but the balance could have been a lot better, then it was pretty tricky conditions in the wet during Q3. We did our lap with older tyres than the guys in front, which was a bit unfortunate, but our pace was good overall so I can’t complain. It’s the second race on the second row for me and there are lots of positives to take out of the weekend so far. Our long run pace looked pretty good compared to the other teams so I’m hoping for dry conditions tomorrow.”


Nico Rosberg
“In the dry conditions I had a great balance today and everything went perfectly which was nice to see. Once it began to rain unfortunately we weren’t able to get the most out of the car and at the end of Q3, my tyres were worn as some parts of the track were drying and I wasn’t able to improve my lap time. We have a good car for the race and a strong starting position from the third row of the grid so I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We should have some good opportunities and will need to make sure that we make the most of them.”

Ross Brawn
“An exciting qualifying session this afternoon with the threat of the weather conditions changing. The car was well balanced on both dry compounds and the intermediate tyres, and we made a pretty good job of judging the conditions. Clearly there was an opportunity at the end to put a second set of intermediates on and potentially go faster but it could have gone either way. Both Lewis and Nico are in good positions for the race and the car seems to be in reasonable shape so we look forward to tomorrow and whatever the weather decides to throw at us.”

Toto Wolff
“That was a tricky qualifying session, particularly in Q3 when it may have been better to run a second set of new intermediate tyres - but it’s easy to be wise after the fact. The reality today is that we have shown our trend is positive, we got a solid result with both cars in the top six and the team delivered a solid performance. We have spent the entire weekend working on our performance for Sunday, not Saturday, and we hope that we can confirm our positive trend tomorrow.”

~ Official photos and report courtesy of MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS ~

Copyright © 2013, mercedesgla. All rights reserved.

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Malaysian F1 Grand Prix 2013: Friday's Free Practice Report - Productive day for MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS

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The first two practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix took place in the searing heat of the Sepang circuit today.

- The team focused on race preparation and an evaluation of the hard and medium compound Pirelli tyres

- A brief rain shower during P2 caused some disruption midway through the session

- Nico and Lewis completed a total of 51 and 50 laps respectively today during the two sessions

Drivers ++ Car No. ++ Chassis No. ++ Practice One ++ Practice Two
Nico Rosberg ++ 9 ++ F1 W04 / 03 ++ 19 laps, 1:37.588, P5 ++ 32 laps, 1:37.448, P7
Lewis Hamilton ++ 10 ++ F1 W04 / 04 ++ 18 laps, 1:37.840, P9 ++ 32 laps, 1:37.574, P9

Weather - Hot and humid
Temperatures - Air: 29-32°C / Track: 29-42°C

Nico Rosberg
“We worked a lot on our long run pace today, rather than being quick over one lap. As we saw in Melbourne, tyre management will be the key to success, so that’s our focus for the practice sessions. The conditions were tough out there and the heat is unbelievable. Generally we learnt a lot today but we still have some homework to do tonight and tomorrow.”

Lewis Hamilton
“We made some positive steps with the set-up over the two sessions today. I had a good long run in the dry which has given us a lot of information to look at tonight. We didn’t learn too much in the wet this afternoon however as the conditions were quite mixed when I went out. We focused mainly on longer runs today so I haven’t done a quick lap yet on either set of tyres; that will come tomorrow. I’m happy with the direction that we’re going and let’s see what the weekend brings.”

Ross Brawn
“We’ve had a good first day in Sepang. The programme focused on understanding the performance and consistency of the tyres and we learnt a lot today which will be relevant for the race on Sunday. The running was a little compromised by the conditions this afternoon but we had anticipated that and managed to get most of our work done before the rain came. Overall, I’m reasonably happy with the work that we achieved today.”

Toto Wolff
“We ran through a solid programme today where we focused most of all on race preparation on high fuel. We did two good long runs with Nico and Lewis, which has given us lots of data to compare. Well done to the guys for managing the programme so we could get the maximum from the dry track conditions. Tomorrow, we will concentrate more on one-lap pace and see where we stand. But we saw last weekend that, more than ever, this season is about being quick on Sunday, not just Saturday.”

~ Official photos and report courtesy of MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS ~

Copyright © 2013, mercedesgla. All rights reserved.

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